Our women, Cerridwen posess
With cyhyraeth sighs but nonetheless
Their warriors charge, and hack and slash
Non are saved ax, sword and spear and dash

Our kin they slay, our children too
Beaten down amid the bloody stew
Our altars broke our groves are burned
Our truth is lost and the wheel is turned.

Now we sleep at Din Dryfol
Or lie neath stars
At Barclodiad y Gawres
Though we are dead and long gone
Our story goes on and on

And if you cross the Menai Straight
Tarvel between those concrete gates
Stare down on Angelsey’s tide drencehd shore
And ask why we are no more.

We rest in Annwn but live in dreams
And speak in cracks between the seams
It is the Bard we will inspire
To keep alive ths sacred fire

And should a mournful Druid pass
Pray raise a drink, raise a glass
For we are not dead nor ever were
We turn from wood to stone to earth….

Moonbear

The Battle – or perhaps Massacre – of Menai in AD60 is well documented and could be seen as a key moment in the decline of Druidry. It is the Roman write Tacitus who writes with venom and propaganda of the battle…

“[Paulinus] prepared to attack the island of Mona which had a powerful population and was a refuge for fugitives. He built flat-bottomed vessels to cope with the shallows, and uncertain depths of the sea. Thus the infantry crossed, while the cavalry followed by fording, or, where the water was deep, swam by the side of their horses. On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women, in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. All around, the Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven, and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motionless, and exposed to wounds. Then urged by their general’s appeals and mutual encouragements not to quail before a troop of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance, and wrapped the foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, and their groves, devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it indeed a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails.”

One wonders who the barbarians were and what gives one culture the right to call another culture civilised..